-LRB- Rolling Stone -RRB- -- There are moments when `` Move Like This , '' the first new album by the Cars in 24 years , sounds so much like a record by the Cars that you find yourself laughing out loud .

Take `` Sad Song , '' on which the opening salvo -- a terse guitar strum set against the machinelike thwack of snare drum and hand claps -- is such a note-perfect evocation of the band 's vintage attack that it almost plays like winking self-parody .

Ronald Reagan was mired in the Iran-Contra scandal when Ric Ocasek and Co. released their last studio album ; Benjamin Orr , the Cars ' bassist and co-lead singer , died of pancreatic cancer in 2000 .

But the Cars have n't moved their music an inch . This is the sound of a band picking up a conversation in midsentence .

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Can you blame them ? Their hits are still radio mainstays , and their influence is audible in successive generations of pop-savvy rockers , from Weezer to the Strokes .

Listen back to `` Just What I Needed '' or `` Drive '' and you 'll hear where many of today 's young bands learned their tricks : how to mix guitars and synthesizers , how to make rock that 's as tuneful as bubblegum , and pop that 's as stylishly sinister as rock .

`` Move Like This '' is a reminder that New Wave can still sound new , especially when the Cars do it .

Produced with skillful restraint by Ocasek , his bandmates and the dependable Jacknife Lee -LRB- the Hives , Snow Patrol -RRB- , the album calls to mind adjectives long associated with the Cars : taut , sleek , seamless , efficient . It 's a record that whizzes past -- 10 songs in less than 40 minutes -- leaving behind a dark gleam .

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It opens with a socko one-two punch : `` Blue Tip '' and `` Too Late , '' textbook Cars songs that place Ocasek 's deadpan atop Elliot Easton 's tensile lead guitar and Greg Hawkes ' blipping , squealing keyboards .

The Cars have been called post-punk pop classicists -- what Buddy Holly might have sounded like had he lived long enough to trade in his Strat for a Roland synthesizer . But the thing that has really set them apart is groove , and Ocasek is at his best in songs like `` Keep on Knockin ' , '' singing a jittery version of the boogie blues .

Ocasek 's lyrics can be hard to parse , whether about sex -LRB- `` Your waxy face is melting on your lap/I sat there trying to crush a gingersnap '' -RRB- or politics -LRB- `` Sanctuary in the heartland/Black-and-white TV/Stroking all the gunheads / To the ninth degree '' -RRB- .

But for Ocasek , the sound is more important than the message -- in fact , the sound is the message . The Cars have always been mood-music specialists ; their cold , brittle , shiny songs evoke long nights , jagged nerves , frustrated longings .

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Orr added some warmth , a touch of daylight , to the proceedings , but with him gone , Ocasek has burnished the group 's music to a glossier shade of noir . `` Your eyes are dim , your heart is blue / 'Cause nothing ever lasts , '' Ocasek croaks over chiming guitar arpeggios in `` Take Another Look '' ; on `` Sad Song , '' he sings , `` It 's just a sad song that pulls you along . ''

Long after we thought we 'd heard the last from them , the Cars have made their darkest , most romantic album . It pulls you along .

Copyright © 2010 Rolling Stone .

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New Cars album is the `` sound of a band picking up a conversation in midsentence ''

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Cars ' hits are still radio mainstays , and their influence is audible

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`` Move Like This '' is a reminder that New Wave can still sound new